Toni Saunders PhD

Specializations & Experience

Dr. Saunders is a clinical psychologist who has been working with children and families for the past 45 years . For the past 20 years she has been practicing spiritual psychotherapy and teaching the Enneagram.

After teaching at the University of Illinois Medical School, in 1980 she founded and directed The Capable Kid Counseling Centers. Dr. Saunders has coauthored two parenting books, The Stress-Proof Child and Focus on Children. In addition to writing numerous parenting columns and articles, she has appeared on more than 400 TV and radio shows, here and in Great Britain.

Antoinette is the co-author of A Women's Search for Inner Peace: 16 spiritual practices for everyday life.

Dr. Saunders now lives in St Louis. She is in private practice offering spiritual psychotherapy. She teaches part time at Webster University in the Professional Counseling Department. Dr. Saunders is on the staff of St. Louis Wellness Center where she teaches the Enneagram.

In 1988 Dr. Saunders trained in spiritual direction at the Institute for Spiritual Companionship. She was Co-Founder of Transformations: Institute for Psychological and Spiritual Development. Transformations co-sponsored the Annual Women Spirituality Conference in Northfield, Il

During her training in spiritual direction, Antoinette was introduced to the Enneagram. She was certified to teach the Enneagram by Jerry Wagner, PhD at Loyola University in Chicago. She is currently a professional member of The International Enneagram Association.

Specializations

Toni specializes in:

The Enneagram: The Enneagram is a powerful and dynamic personality system that describes 9 distinct and fundamentally different patterns of thinking feeling and acting. This model of transformation offers specific suggestions for spiritual insight and development.

Workshops and Classes offered

Introduction to the Enneagram: Participants will be given an understanding of their personality Type, including their object of attention, strength, challenges, basic fear, vice and virtue. Participants will be able to understand how wings, arrows and subtypes can be used as directions for identifying with the healthy aspects of other types. Dr. Saunders currently uses Dad Daniel's The Essential Enneagram.

The Enneagram as a Spiritual Practice: Participants will learn how to recognize their ego (personality) and choose to identify with their spiritual nature. Dr. Saunders currently uses Risso and Hudson's The Wisdom of the Enneagram.

Spiritual Psychotherapy: This course is designed around the book, The Sacred Couldon: Psychotherapy as a Spiriual Practice by Lionell Corbett, M.D., a Jungian analyst. His thesis is that "psychotherapy is a valuable tool resource for addressing spiritual questions that are likely to emerge when we suffer...in the widest sense, one's spirituality may be one's personal way of dealing with one's ultimate questions...finding meaning, depth, significance and purpose in life." (p 2-3)

Experience

Toni’s experience includes:

• Transformations: Institute for Psychological and Spiritual Development – Co-Founder